A MYSTERIOUS LADY.
Miss Hansen was some time absent, and Kenelm Eyrle awaited her return
in grim silence. He did not, as some men would have done, amuse himself
by looking around the room, seeking to guess the character of its
occupants, as was usual with him; he forgot everything except Clarice,
whom he had loved and lost.
“I have been a long time, Mr. Eyrle,” said the cheerful voice of Miss
Hansen. “Mrs. Payton was out in the grounds. I shall soon believe there
is magic in your name, for Mrs. Payton is willing to see you.”
Evidently the little lady was startled.
“Will you follow me,” she said, “to the morning-room? We found so many
rooms at the Dower House that we have been puzzled how to name them.”
He followed her to a large, bright, cheerful room--a room that seemed,
at first sight, somewhat crowded with pictures and statues. His eyes
were dazzled at first, for the sunbeams were very bright; then, as
he grew accustomed to the light, he saw before him the tall, stately
figure of a lady, dressed in deepest mourning. He was so completely
unprepared for her wonderful beauty that he looked at her for a few
minutes, quite unable to speak. Then his face flushed at his own
awkwardness.
“I must apologize,” he said. “I was under the impression that Mrs.
Payton was an elderly lady. You will think me very ill-bred--very
stupid.”
Perhaps she had known the force of her own beauty in happier days, for
a sad smile half rippled over her lips, then died away.
“I may plead guilty to the same mistake,” she said. “I thought Mr.
Eyrle very much my senior.”
“So I am,” he replied.
“You are very kind to give yourself the trouble of calling upon me,”
she continued. “I want your permission to have a large bay window
made in the drawing-room; it is my favorite room; the view is very
beautiful, but the window is small.”
“I can have no possible objection,” he replied, courteously.
“It will be expensive,” she said.
“That will not matter; it will serve to beautify the home.”
Again the same sad, faint smile.
“You are different from most of the landlords in whose houses I have
lived,” she said. “That is the primary consideration. I thought I would
explain to you that the alterations I should like to make will not
affect other tenants, as I have every wish and hope, be my life long or
short, to spend it here.”
He looked at her in unaffected wonder, thinking to himself that it
could be no ordinary sorrow that caused so young and lovely a woman
to spend her life in seclusion. He had rarely, if ever, seen a more
beautiful woman. She was tall, with a finely formed figure, full of
gracious, graceful curves, that made every movement seem like a note
of richest harmony. She had a lovely Spanish face, dark, beautiful,
dreamy, but inexpressibly sad; there were purple rings around her dark
eyes, as though she wept much and watched more; there was no light in
the faint, sad smile that rippled over her lips. As one sees sometimes
a perfect flower, over which saddest blight has fallen, so was she
blighted in her youth, in her beauty, by some terrible sorrow, the
nature of which no one could guess from her face.
He was thinking intently of her, wondering so deeply what her history
was, that he was not aware that she had spoken to him twice without
receiving any answer. When he discovered it, for the second time during
the interview, his face flushed hotly at his own awkwardness. He tried
to bring the interview to a more businesslike conclusion.
“I am afraid, Mrs. Payton,” he said, “that you find me very stupid. I
had a dreadful trouble years ago, and it has made me unlike every one
else.”
He saw a gleam of kindly sympathy light up her dark eyes.
“Trouble?” she repeated, wearily. “I think every one in the wide
world has that. I never hear of anything else. Trouble? I ask myself
sometimes why we were created to do nothing save suffer. Do you
remember those lines of Barry Cornwall’s?
“We toil through pain and wrong;
We fight and fly;
We have, we love, and then ere long
Stone dead we lie.
“There you have life--a little pain, a little wrong, a little love,
then stone dead we lie.”
Words could no more describe the melancholy of her voice than they
could the beauty of her face.
“You are very young,” he said, pityingly, “to know so much more of
sorrow than of joy.”
Then she seemed suddenly to remember that she was talking to a
stranger, one whom a few moments before she hardly saw. She, too, grew
slightly confused, and abruptly changed the conversation.
“As landlord and tenant,” she said, “we ought to have some agreement, I
suppose. I do not wish to cause you any heavy expense, and if my whim
be gratified, I am perfectly willing to defray a just share of the
expense.”
“You want a pretty window?” said Kenelm, suddenly. “I will give you a
design.”
He took his pencil, drawing a sheet of paper near him, with a few bold,
graceful strokes, he completed the design of a very handsome window. He
showed it to her.
“Yes,” she said, “that is what I want. How quick you are to seize upon
an idea! To make that perfect there should be purple passion flowers
around these fluted pillars.”
“And a beautiful face peeping through the leaves,” he said. “You
shall have the window, Mrs. Payton, and when it is completed to our
satisfaction, we will arrange such minor and uninteresting details
as expense. You must let me come sometimes to see how the design
progresses.”
“I cannot refuse you admittance to your own house,” she replied, with a
smile, “but my rule is imperative. I see no visitors.”
“Then I shall come as landlord, architect, window-designer, or any
other character save that of visitor; then you will not refuse to see
me.”
“You are so kind,” she said, with a graceful courtesy. “I can never do
that.”
There was no pretense for prolonging the interview and Kenelm rose from
his seat.
“As you receive no visitors, I may presume you do not visit. I have
never met you out. Have you seen Leeholme church? It is considered very
beautiful and picturesque.”
“I have never left the Dower House since I entered it,” she replied,
“and most probably, when I enter Leeholme church, it will be when I am
taken there to be buried. I say this to you, but I do not know why I
give my confidence to a stranger.”
“They say that the happy are attracted to each other--perhaps the
unhappy are the same,” he said, and then he left her.
But as he walked home he thought more of that beautiful Spanish face
than he had thought of anything since Clarice died.